So what's next?

Good Monday afternoon, friends.  Appreciate you stopping by.

Kind of an interesting point in the year where we are now.  Baseball is over until next spring, although the World Series and several of the playoff series were quite exciting.  And my Cincinnati Reds qualified for the first round, losing two in a row to the eventual World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers.  They have a great team, as do the Toronto Blue Jays.  Well done to both teams!

Professional and college football are sort of hovering in place right now.  The postseason isn't here yet but the season is not at all new anymore for either level.  And yet it's still hard to tell which teams will identify themselves as the best in their particular divisions.

Professional hockey is now underway for about a month, and so far there are defined "good" and "not good" teams.  Luckily the team I support, the Colorado Avalanche, are "good," at least for now!

Basketball is just getting started professionally and college has just wrapped up exhibitions.  Too early to tell who has what.

I think the best job to have is a college football coach.  Apparently it's one of the surest ways to secure long-term wealth that exists.  Sign the big contract, stink at your job and voila!  Payout soon follows.  Who are these dopes who sign coaches to these massive contracts with equally massive buyout clauses?  And let me me specifically mention the University of Kentucky, my alma mater, who signed their football coach to a long extension with a large buyout clause.  Not only is it a lot of money, but it's not apportioned into monthly installments.  No, UK has to pay it in a lump sum if the current coach is given the heave-ho.  Unless all parties agree through negotiations to change the terms.

Would you agree to less if you'd signed the big contract?

Me neither.

New movies are beginning to come out in theaters (yawn, I haven't been to the movies since before COVID) and on streaming services.  One film I saw on Netflix, A House of Dynamite, was intriguing but retold the first twenty-five minutes two more times from additional perspectives and had a novel ending.  Haven't seen much of anything else.

Let's all give a round of applause to right-thinking federal judges, appointed by all stripes of presidential administrations.  They are single-handedly slowing and sometimes stopping the lunacy that the current administration insists upon inflicting on the American people.  One particularly vicious decision that's being undone is to not find a way to fund SNAP (formerly food stamps) benefits for recipients who rely on them to feed themselves and their families.  Most are working poor or disabled.  It has been ordered that the federal government, shutdown or not, pay for these programs via contingency funds.  Bravo.

I didn't answer the question.  What's next?  A mayor's race in New York that is pretty much decided, some interesting and important gubernatorial elections and some special elections for House seats. These should give a clear indication of the voting public's sentiments about how things are just now.

And with that, I wish you a good afternoon!